We all love an anti-hero, so it's fairly common to see a character shift from being a villain to a hero in a TV show.

Whether or not you like the character, though, this can cause issues when the series has previously shown you what a massive bastard they are, leaving you questioning whether you really should be cheering them on now that they've changed their ways and started being nice to kittens.

Here are 11 times where a villain did something SO bad that they didn't actually deserve to be redeemed as a hero – but they were.

1. Spike – Buffy the Vampire Slayer

In truth, you could say this about Angel too, but Spike always seemed like the worse of the two since he was evil from the get-go and tried to kill Buffy on multiple occasions. Add to it the scores of people he killed (and drank) over the centuries and you have a despicable villain who probably should never have been forgiven. Even when he turned good, he tried to rape Buffy, FFS.

If only Oliver Queen held his mother's memory in as high regard as Batman and Superman (MARTHA!!!), maybe he would never have forgiven Deathstroke for murdering Moira Queen to get revenge on Oliver. Instead, Oliver actually sought out his help to defeat Adrian Chase and the two are best buddies again.

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3. Luke – General Hospital

One of the most notable supercouples in American drama history – Luke Spencer and Laura Webber – have a seriously dark backstory. Somehow, Laura went on to fall in love with and marry Luke despite him drunkenly raping her. The couple still proved to be popular with the fans, even when the incident was revisited and viewers were reminded that, yes, Laura was in love with her rapist.

Much like with the vampires on Buffy, you could level this accusation at most of the main characters in The Vampire Diaries. However, we're going with Klaus because he killed Elena's aunt and presided over the slaughter of countless people.

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Then he fell in love with Caroline and became one of the show's (many) resident tortured but ultimately loveable bad boys. They even gave him his own spin-off series with The Originals.

Look, we like Jaime Lannister, we really do. And we're hopeful that the events of season seven mean he's finally out of Cersei's grip. But there is that nagging feeling that we probably shouldn't like him, given that one of the first things we ever saw him doing was push a child out of a tower window, crippling him for life. It's not the kind of act you can file under 'loveable rogue'.

T-Bag became one of the gang on Prison Break and a fan-favourite anti-hero after helping them escape, but really, should we have been cheering him on? He was a murderer and a child rapist, after all, and he killed Marvin the vet just because he didn't trust him not to call the police after re-attaching his hand. Awkward.

Okay, Merle wasn't completely reformed in season three, but he did at least rescue Daryl from the Governor and attempt to kill the latter later in the season. But he's otherwise a violent racist and even tried to kill Michonne, until he realised that Daryl had become a different person with Rick. Too little, too late.

Despite initially being as supervillainous as her previous incarnations as the Master, Missy basically became the Doctor's ally after she faked her demise in the 2014 series. But let's not forget that Missy IS the Master, and has killed billions over the course of Doctor Who's entire run.

So it'll take more than a bit of self-sacrifice to pay back those deaths.

9. Number Six – Battlestar Galactica

You can say that she sacrificed her own life to save Gaius Baltar from a nuclear blast, but the fact remains that if it wasn't for Number Six, the Cylons would never have been able to destroy most of humanity. Her feeling bad about it after she's downloaded into a new body, and trying to create peace between humans and Cylons, pales in comparison to genocide.

10. Sylar – Heroes

The main villain through most of Heroes was Sylar, and no amount of trying to be a hero – which he kind of is by the end of the original run – wipes out the fact that he has killed loads of people, not to mention the fact he then went rooting around in their brains to steal their abilities.